Banbury parents pressure county council to make U-turn on spare seats scheme

At a meeting between Oxfordshire County Councillors, parents of school children, and campaigners from the Save Our Bus Seats campaign, Cllr. Martin Goff, the head of access to learning, said the council will not go ahead with the planned total withdrawal of the scheme.

Last night’s (Monday January 30) meeting at the Warriner School was called to discuss the council’s recent unexpected decision to scrap the scheme, which offers a paid transport place for pupils who do not qualify for free school transport.

Clara Dawe from Save Our Bus Seats attended the meeting and said: "The county council had originally said they are withdrawing the scheme because the costs of providing the bus service for the spare seat scheme would be subject to an increase of around 32 per cent once the new bus tender has gone through.

"So therefore, the council decided that parents would not be willing to pay that amount, and so they would not include it in the tender, thus causing the withdrawal of the spare seat scheme.

"Now Martin Goff, who was responsible for signing off on the withdrawal of the scheme, has agreed under massive pressure from the parents that he will not only include the Spare Seat Scheme from across the county in the tender process, which starts on June 1, he will also give some indicative costs prior to that date."

Clara, along with many of the other parents who attended the meeting, would be forced to change her job if the scheme were to be withdrawn, as her working hours often mean she is unable to transport her children to and from school.

Clara said: "The council is saying it will cost 32 per cent more; as an example, for me, that would mean I pay £75 a term. If I can't get my child to school by bus, I will have to change jobs, so obviously I’m going to pay the £75 because the most financially punitive thing for me is not to work.

"In the meeting, there were nurses, hospital staff, teachers, and key workers who all said they could not get their children to school if they withdrew it. The council said the reason behind withdrawing the scheme is that parents won’t pay, but all the parents in the room raised their hands to say that they would pay the extra amount.

"For the parents that can’t afford to pay, the parish councils have a discretionary fund they can use to help get children to school. We don’t want any child left behind by this. It was only pressure from the parents that did it."

A spokesperson from Oxfordshire County Council issued this statement: "Oxfordshire County Council will continue to provide the home to school transport service for all eligible pupils.

“We are reducing the number of spare seats in the scheme on certain contracts that need to be renewed and where we currently have high levels of students travelling who are not entitled to free home to school transport.

“The new contracts make it unaffordable for us to continue to provide the same number of spare seats.

“We are very mindful when making these difficult decisions of the impact on the parents, who will have to make alternative arrangements; and on the environment and reducing carbon.

“But this has to be balanced against the council’s budget."